Monday, August 06, 2007

Stalin.

"Geoffrey Roberts, a Professor of History at the University College Cork, Ireland, is the author of a new book, Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939-1953, which offers a major reassessment of Stalin as a war leader and as a postwar peacemaker. Among other things, Roberts argues that Stalin was a highly effective and successful war leader and that he saved the world for democracy."

One of the contributors to the symposium is - - Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa.

"the highest ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc"

Reading the symposium, it is the comments of Pacepa that I pay the closest attention to. I am of the opinion that only these high ranking defectors [count Senja, Grigorenko, Suvorov among the many] can provide worthy analysis with the correct proper perspective the subject merits. Read carefully the comments of Pacepa.

Stalin as a great wartime leader? Great by what definition. This is most important? Great in the Biblical sense of the word? Great as in POWERFUL? A leader who has at his/her disposal GREAT power and exercises same, heedless of the consequences!! That is not how the modern context of GREAT is seen. GREAT as I understand the modern context is that proper combination of power with restraint for GOOD!!

Stalin WAS great in the Biblical sense!!

NOT great in the modern sense.

A Roosevelt WAS great in the modern understanding of the word "GREAT". Exercised tremendous power, but did so with restraint, considering the consequences, and did so for GOOD!!

[that is also NOT to say that Roosevelt made mistakes - - YES, he did!!]

From one of the symposium contributors:

"Of course the word 'great' can be used in many ways. If 'the great man of history' is anyone who had a major impact on history, then both Stalin and Hitler qualify . . . But . . . neither man can be called 'great' in the broader sense of the term."

1 Comments:

JSBolton said...

Stalin, in the days before he could get much American aid, made one of the worst intelligence blunders in the history of the world, trusting that Hitler would not attack, even though he had loads of reports detailing what would happen. Stalin retreated 1,000 miles or more, shooting officers every step of the way for retreating against orders. Around Kiev, the largest unauthorized surrender of troops in the field, in the history of the world, occurred, much to the chagrin and disgrace of Stalin as a war leader. A huge number of soviet soldiers got surrounded, around a million of them, but Stalin to the end, refused to allow them to surrender with permission, even when they were stranded over 100 miles behind the German front lines, and had no chances of resupply of food weaponry or anything. Events like that occurred even though Stalin had access to decodings of German plans and tactics and resources information.